


Cold Moon Rising

by Turtle_ier



Series: Turtle's MCYT AUs [19]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Priests, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Daddy Kink, Horror, M/M, No Smut, Priest Kink, Vampire Bites, Vampires, Yes that is a warning, overuse of the word 'father'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29090007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtle_ier/pseuds/Turtle_ier
Summary: Floris comes across a man dying in the fen. When he gives his last confession to Floris, something more sinister is revealed in the moonlight.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Floris | Fundy
Series: Turtle's MCYT AUs [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875367
Comments: 2
Kudos: 79





	Cold Moon Rising

“Here’s the thing about a haunted forest; it’s not going to haunt itself.”

– Unknown. 

The forest on the other side of the fen was inaccessible by foot or by cart for most of the year, but Floris remembered that in winter, should the ice grow thick enough, he could walk across it if he wished. 

And goodness, it had been an age since he had done that, hadn't it? He must have been a boy, no more than ten or so when he’d last donned the pair of boots which gripped the surface well enough to walk on it, and had marched off to find the eels nests and frozen dragonflies on the island. It was an island, after all, an island forest in the fen. 

Floris walked beside the water now, glancing through the reeds at it as he made his way along the gravel road. The midwinter feast had been and gone, his parish had already smothered the candles and removed the beading from the windows, but the smell of smoke he recognised from the chimneys in the village lingered in the air. On that January night, he could feel his bed call to him, and the moonlight lit the frost as if they were jewels lining the water’s edge, hiding the cold, bitter end he knew lingered there instead. 

He had no lantern, seeing as candles when he could still see were considered excessive this time of year. They needed to keep as many supplies as possible in case of disastrous rain, like they had the year before, or worse, snow. But he could see the path in the moonlight, and no trees were there to obscure his way. 

The air was still, calm in the unsettled atmosphere which remained inside him. Leaving the town, he had thought the walk would ease his thoughts, but apparently that wasn't so. With cold feet, Floris wished he had taken George’s offer to ride the cart instead. He wasn't supposed to accept anything that could be considered indulgent, but then again, was saving his shoes all this mud really considered indulgent or was it common sense?

Woudend was known for its mud at this time of year, especially given the fenland so close to their little town, and Floris’ observations were correct. There hadn't been rain over their town in about a week – unusual at that time of year – but there must have been some further north. Ely was known to be wet immediately after midwinter, especially given the western wind and while Woudend was similar, this year was dry and frosty. 

The frost was both a blessing and a curse for it meant the lands were overgrown and in need of being seen to, but it also meant that Floris didn't need to fear it just yet. The fen was a wild thing at the best of times, and he had mercy for the men, women and children that lived on it. Islands in the fen were given a bad name, said to be places of sin and death between the reeds, but they were just people. No evil lived on the fen, just fear, and Floris had a healthy enough amount of that to ignore the thick ice on his walk back to his church. 

But then a noise came from the bulrush at the waterside, a choked, half-gasp, and he stopped suddenly. It was dark enough for him to hardly see beneath the nearby willow tree, and even in its leafless winter state, the shadow it cast was as great as any cloud across a summer’s sky. Floris looked, but in the darkness he was blind. He saw nothing, but scraping his foot along the gravel as he moved to walk hurriedly away, he heard the noise again.

He had to remind himself that, despite his body telling him to run it was his mind that was strong, and so he paused again.

His mouth, dry from the walk and the cold weather, made a sticky noise as he pried his lips apart. The fen made no more noise before he spoke, shattering the eerie silence of the frozen waters.

“Hello?” he asked, “is anyone there?”

Another, louder wet gasp came from the reeds. Floris took a step back, his feet on the other side of the gravel path now and his thin, leather shoes feeling the effects of the frozen ground. Floris’ mouth closed as the noise came again. It sounded like something he unfortunately knew. Fever, possibly plague, like someone’s lungs were filled with their own liquid and they were drowning from the inside out, although he did wonder if it was just the Woudend fen trying to claim another victim. 

But just as he wondered if the person drowning had been taken underwater, a voice came from the edge of the shadows. 

“Father,” it said, masculine and smooth, a contrast to the rasping breaths of before, “Father, you must please help me.”

Floris swallowed, looking into the invisible darkness, where all of his dreams and nightmares lay unknown in the shadow of the great willow tree. The rasping breaths were shallow now, audible as actual sounds rather than the occasional piercing noise, and it was worse. Floris, summoning what bravery he or God could muster, took a step forward. He hadn't been taught this at his seminary, but there was no way on earth he could turn his back from whoever this was, drowning in the fen.

“I am here,” he said, voice quiet, and the rasping breaths paused as if they hadn't expected a response. 

“Father,” the voice said, “I am dying. Please, take my hand.”

And from the shadow, a long, pale hand rose. The fingernails were trimmed, dirty, but the rest of their hand and arm looked as if they had been spared the muck and silt of the fen, appearing clean in the moonlight. They had no sleeves, and Floris shuddered at the thought of them succumbing to the cold of the frozen waters, of them being found, naked and in frost, the next day by some passer-by. Floris sunk to his knees beside the man, and he put his warm hand in his to drag the man from the waters as hard as he could. 

A bare torso greeted him, along with pale hair and white skin, and Floris let the man drop to the floor when he realised that he had been stuck in the cold mud. But the man just breathed, rasping in and out of his lungs with each rise and fall of his chest, and through the strands of his pale hair he looked up at Floris in the moonlight. His face was indescribable, half his body missing in the shadow. He seemed close to starvation. 

“Dear lord,” Floris said, looking down at him, “You must be near death.”

The man chuckled, using the hand Floris had tugged to push himself up slightly, but he could still hardly see his face. The reeds shifted, the stalks of the bulrush and the strands of the willow tree brushing against one another as a single, thankfully clothed leg, came up to his chest. His foot was bare, the other one still trapped in the fen below the tree.

“Forgive me, Father,” the man said, resting his forehead against the gravel road, “for I believe I might die.”

Floris came beside him, his robes draping on the floor as he came down to the man’s level, and without thinking he grasped his hand. Floris stayed there for a moment, raising the man’s hand to his neck, knuckles against his clerical collar as he asked, pleaded, his question. 

“Would you like to confess?” Floris asked the cold man, “I am your earpiece, your man between Earth and God. Please, tell me of your sins and I will ensure you go to heaven.”

The man looked at him again, through his hair and the moonlight, before he gripped Floris’ hand weakly.

“Forgive me father,” he whispered, breathed to him, “for I have sinned.”

“What is your name, my friend?”

The man swallowed, his mouth dry.

“Clay,” he said, softly so that Floris could only just hear him, even with the silence of the frosted world behind them. 

“What are your sins?” he asked, adjusting his hold on Clay as he slipped slightly from his grasp. 

“Greed,” he began, the shadow of his mouth moving, the upper lip shaped like a bow and the bottom lip wet with saliva or fen water, “Lust. Pride.”

The solemness of the situation had hit him, and he sat down on the gravel before he continued with his next question.

“Why is greed your sin?”

“I wanted too much, Father,” Clay said, “I wanted so, so much. It destroyed my friends. My family. I am the only one left. I’m sorry.”

“You are forgiven,” Floris told him, and he adjusted the dying man so that his bare side was pressed against his stomach, his back on the flat surface of Floris’ thighs. 

Clay put an arm around him, his mouth opening, wet, shiny in the moonlight. But he only continued, his hair still all over his face as if he was wishing for it to disguise him. His skin was almost the same colour as the grey gravel road, only slightly lighter. Clay smelt like the fen, and even with the reminder of his childhood fears being so strongly presented to him, Floris was determined to help this man achieve peace before his passing. There was nothing he could do to help him continue living – even giving him his robes would do nothing, considering the half-hour walk until they reached the church, or the forty-five minute one to return to Woudend. He needed to at least help this man reach heaven, even if he couldn't prevent it from happening at all, and Clay’s filthy hand reached and grabbed gently at Floris’ shirt. Confessing was the only thing left for him to do before the end. 

“And for lust?”

“Again,” Clay said, “all in the name of wanting. I had someone, Father.”

Floris ignored the way he said it, ignored the whisper of his title at the end and held the dying man close. His skin was so, so cold, and his clothed legs were covered with the chilled liquid, growing icy as they waited in silence. Floris could see his own breath, fanning out over the features on Clay’s face, his half-lidded eyes and open mouth. His tongue glinted as he spoke to say more. 

“I had someone, and I loved them, but then I lusted for something else. Desire. Poisonous, don't you think?”

“Desire itself, no, but what you do with it can be the poison. Do you regret your actions?”

Floris was leading him down the verbal path to saying ‘yes’, and yet Clay shook his head.

“No, Father,” he said, whispered, “I believe I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

“To what benefit?” he asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. 

What was he doing? No dying man should admit they would make the same mistake that ended their life, and even fewer would say they would do it so readily. 

“For mine.”

He changed the subject, readjusting his grip on Clay to stop him from slipping, and the other man put his clean hand on the small of Floris’ back, resting it there as he tried to find his words. 

“And the last? Pride?” Floris asked as Clay dragged him closer. 

In the darkness of his own shadow, Clay’s face disappeared, only the faintest outlines of his features noticeable. Floris’ hands were numb from the wet cold of Clay’s skin, clammy from his time among the bulrushes, and he helped nudge the man so that he could confess his last sin. Floris had held people like this before – the old, sick, dying – and he had helped them pass through and onto heaven time and time again, but something about Clay felt different. It wasn't just the cold skin, nor the fact that he was a stranger to both Woudend and the fen, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what. Floris swallowed around his collar as Clay opened his mouth again, teeth shining in the light of the moon, breathing raggedly as if he was tasting the air for a final time. 

“Pride, Father,” he said, and leaned up slightly, drawing Floris closer as the grip on the priest’s shirt tightened, “I was too proud of myself for doing this.”

But before Floris could say anything, before he could pull himself back and look down at the dying man, he realised his mistake. 

He thrashed, kicking as hard as he could as the vampire’s teeth sunk into the flesh high on his neck, biting in and curling his mouth around the wound as if it would stop the blood from seeping down. Floris knocked at the beast’s shoulder, pushing him as hard as he could but it was no use. The creature had unnatural strength, a hand on his clothes keeping him close and one on the high of his back to cage him in, and with the vampire’s body resting on his legs he couldn't move from the kneeling position. Clay dragged him forward by his coat, almost chest to chest as his razor-like teeth sunk deeper into his artery, and Floris felt the numbness in his fingers and toes spread further up his limbs, his red-from-cold nose and cheeks growing pale and grey as the monster took his fill. He gasped openly, hoping for breath but getting nothing but the overwhelming smell of blood, and his mouth trembled. Floris’ eyes fluttered briefly, eyelashes smoothing out over his cheeks and opening again, but he saw nothing of the frozen night. 

But then a wrist was at his mouth, and even with his mind sluggishly telling him not to obey the vampire, he was subject to the creature’s will. The blood seeped into his mouth, slow from the poor circulation within the vampire, and the bitter, stale, vinegary taste of off wine spread out over his tongue. He had read, somewhere, that it was supposed to be sweet, but all he could taste was acid. As he lost his bearing, his hands on Clay’s shoulders finally letting go, the vampire switched them over so that Floris was on his back, gasping wetly with his mouth red, and eventually, with one final, sinful flick of his tongue, the vampire drew back. 

He looked alive, with his eyes dark but shining in the moonlight like coins, and his smile was filled with Floris’ deep, red blood. His clawed hands, one still filthy from laying his trap in the fen, gripped first at his black clothing, then at the clergy collar, before the clean hand came to brush at the liquid in his mouth.

“Thank you Father,” Clay said, brushing against Floris’ lips, spreading them apart and looking inside eagerly, “I will remember your good deed.”

That was all he said, not letting Floris reply before he stepped back and out of sight. Floris tried to move, and only succeeded slightly in pulling himself up from the gravel road before he saw a small, bloated animal flying away. His mind supplied a bat, but he wasn't so sure. He opened his mouth, feeling its stickiness as his lips parted, before closing it and attempting to swallow around the tacky, ill feeling from before. His throat was lacquered in it, vinegary and stale, and he tried to cough around the feeling but all he could do was rasp. Tentatively, he reached up with a single hand and pressed against the flesh of his neck, feeling the slick blood covering the surface and dripping down onto his clothes, his hair and the gravel floor, but there was no wound. Just blood. 

Other than the red staining him and the woozy feeling, it was as if Floris had never stopped to try and help the vampire at all. 

It was just himself, the moon and the plants along the gravel road. Woudend waited on one end, and his church on the other, and Floris’ mouth was not the only thing that tasted blood that night. He’d have to warn everyone, he realised, now that there was a vampire among their people. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! This is a little shorter than some of my other works, but it's been a tricky one to write. It originally stated as a victorian ghost horror, then it got ditched for about 2 months, and then I pulled out all the bits I liked and made this instead :P 
> 
> If you like the idea of a priest/mystery/suspense thing, you should read 'The Western Wind' by Samantha Harvey. It's good. 
> 
> As always, please respect creators boundaries by not sending them this fic, and I will do the same in the event that they no longer want fanfiction or fan works. If it is ever declared incorrect to write shipping fics by the creators themselves this work will be deleted. Under no circumstance am I trying to insult or hurt anyone here.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr: @turtle-ier  
> Find me on Twitter: @Turtle_ier


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